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Saturday, March 19, 2016

The closest thing I have to a religion is movies. I don't adhere to any systems of spirituality because, frankly, there isn't a single one that is based on even the tiniest shred of verifiable evidence. That isn't to say I don't experience moments of transcendence or embrace cultural systems that do; I'm just a lot more honest about it than a lot of people. I find cultural instances of transcendence in the written word, video games, and mostly movies. I'm not sure why I developed such an affinity for movies. Perhaps part of it based on the fact that out of all forms of media, movies most closely reflect the way that human beings process the world around us. The point is that award shows are the closest thing I have to a High Holy Days, and I have completely abandoned even the pretense of observing them.

I wish the Oscars actually mattered, but it seems like the organizers do everything in their power to turn potential adherents away. Aside from the fact that the Oscars are boring as shit, the whole voting process is a giant clusterfuck. Right now it's a political system, which means it's based mostly on popularity and marketing campaigns and money. Which is fine if that's the system they want to employ. It's just that the results from one year to the next aren't comparable on any meaningful level, and so the outcome doesn't really hold a lot of value. Which wouldn't be so bad, if the Oscars didn't have the pretense of providing some meaningful metric. They're a popularity contest posing as a meritocracy, and it's that gap between what they are and what they purport themselves to be that's the problem.